Process Modelling of the Recovery of Volatile Organic Compounds on Activated Carbon Monoliths

Abstract

The research described in this thesis is to develop and validate a process systemmodel for an electrothermal swing adsorption (ESA) process that incorporates novelactivated carbon monoliths (ACMs) for the recovery of volatile organic compounds(VOCs). The process system comprises two columns one dedicated for adsorption andthe other for desorption and works in a cyclic mode of operation. Two mathematicalmodels have been developed to describe the process system, namely in one dimension(1D) and in three dimensions (3D). The developed models have been validated usingexperimental data at the bench and the pilot scale, at different operating conditions andfor two VOCs. It has been concluded that the 1D model was sufficient to represent theexperimental data of the current study without going through the trouble of using the 3Dmodel which was more demanding in terms of formulation and computation. The lineardriving force approximation (LDF) approximation adequately predicted the concentrationof VOCs in the gas phase with no need for a fundamental diffusion study within the solidof the ACMs. The kinetics of adsorption and desorption was governed by the masstransfer coefficient which was found by parameter estimation and was directly related tothe internal mass transfer coefficient controlled mainly by molecular diffusion inside thepore structure of the ACMs.

Date of Award	31 Dec 2013
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	Barry Crittenden (Supervisor)